Photo by Jon Arretxe. Facebook profile.
A Jon arretxe i met him a couple of years ago in Aranjuez. Featured 19 cameras, one of his novels starring his particular detective Toure. Now take out the seventh, Distrust, and has been kind enough to grant me this interview. I really appreciate your time and dedication.
INTERVIEW with JON ARRETXE
- ACTUALIDAD LITERATURA: Do you remember the first book you read? And the first story you wrote?
JON ARRETXE: The first books I remember reading are by Alfred Hitchcok and The Three Investigators. Sure there is something before, but memory already fails me. The first thing I remember writing is a diary with my personal experiences.
- AL: What was that book that impacted you and why?
HA: Ebano, kapuscinski, because it tastes authentic Africa, one of my passions as an author and as a person.
AL: Who is your favorite writer? You can choose more than one and from all eras.
JA: Aside from Kapuscinski himself, Poe, Chester himesDaniel pennack, Alexis Ravel...
- AL: What character in a book would you have liked to meet and create?
HA: Charles marlow, Heart of Darknessby Conrad. It wouldn't be bad to have met your own Kurtz.
- AL: Any mania when it comes to writing or reading?
JA: Stop read it is enough for me to be solo and not at all silence, riding a anywhere. For write, before I needed something sweet in the mouth: gummies, lollipops, chewing gums five by five ... and the odd beer. Now that I have given up all vices, I am content with nibble on a bic pen or bite my nails.
- AL: And your preferred place and time to do it?
JA: Before I only wrote about night and madrugada, in spas, monasteries ... (for example, in Silos I have written many pages). Now that I have more commitments and I look for life as I can. I fix in any library o study room, as long as you have a few hours ahead. Anyway, the perfect place is somewhere small hotel o apartment in the place where I place the novel that I am writing.
- AL: What does Touré, your protagonist, keep giving you and what do we find in his seventh novel, Distrust?
HA: I still believe in him, in what represents the people of your profile in our society. Looks like a character to me necesario, that serves me to entertain y also for denounce. Also, I feel the feedback of many readers, who have taken a liking to him.
En Distrust I take it to Paris, to the neighborhoods of Barbès and Belleville, with her friend Yareliz. At first they live like never before, with plenty of money thanks to their tricks, but of course, the situation is complicated and everything goes wrong. If not, it wouldn't be Touré.
- AL: More favorite literary genres?
JA: Apart from the black novel, raw and harsh to be possible, I like the travel literature and stories with an ethnic twist, exotic or whatever you want to call it, be it traditional narratives or fiction.
- AL: What are you reading now? And writing?
JA: I just finished The Little Prose Seller, Daniel's pennack, and now I have at home a good pile of candidate novels to be read, among them the last ones by Escribano, Cabezas, Ravelo… I don't know which one I'm going to decide on. As for writing, I just finished a youth adventure novel, and I'm already getting with the eighth of Touré.
- AL: How do you think the publishing scene is for as many authors as there are or want to publish?
JA: There are quite a few editorials, But the majority No. are willing to take risks with new authors or veterans who do not sell. In general there are too many authors, and too few readers. Publishing is not difficult, because desktop publishing is relatively cheap, but achieve and maintain a good number of readers / buyers of your books is screwed, especially if you aspire to make a living from it.
- AL: Is the moment of crisis that we are experiencing being difficult for you or will you be able to keep something positive for future novels?
JA: This weather sucks in every way. People are having a hard time. I personally do not complain, but I hardly find time to read or write, and the new Topics Fashion Related with the pandemic, which could serve us for future works, they don't inspire me absolutely.